The frustration cannot be explained when the important email you’re waiting for (and know was already sent) doesn’t appear in your Gmail nearly immediately. Or worse yet. That important email ends up in your spam or junkmail folder.

For local business owners, having leads not show up at the top level of your email in-box can cost you sales.

Most public email providers, like Gmail, have their own spam filter algorithms that save user from hundreds of junk emails as well as nasty viruses. Sometimes Gmail mistakenly labels an email from a frequent forwarder (like your website domain) as a spammer and moves the emails into your spam or junkmail folder.

To correct Gmail’s misdirect, you want to add a filter to Gmail to WHITELIST the important email address or domain name.

Yep, that is exactly how I feel when I get caught up in all the technical bells and whistles involved in online marketing today. While a good looking website that is easy to navigate is important, it is not the MOST important aspect of marketing. What is WRITTEN in the website is most important. That means content. The same is true for article marketing, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc. And today, content also includes images along with the text.

Copyblogger did a great job of visually sharing how, over the years, nothing has changed. In online marketing, it’s the content, stupid . . .

If you are in the process of developing or improving the website for your business, then you’ve probably heard the phrase, “content is king.” However, do you understand exactly why your website’s content is so imperative to its success? Here are five reasons why creating amazing content for your website is imperative to its success online.

Conveys a clear message.

This may seem obvious, but many people miss the boat on the concept of getting a message across. It’s not enough to attract attention with a catchy slogan or a slick story. When it comes down to it, those are just words that must be backed up with clear meaning about the purpose and scope of your site. Good content will actually inform your potential customers about your business, and assure them they can count on your website (and eventually your business) to provide what they are looking for.

Lends credibility.

High quality content will help you establish your voice in the industry. When you provide valuable information in an effective way, you automatically have an air of authority with your site visitors. This type of credibility can help make you an online leader in your industry.

Keeps people coming back for more.

One of the most important jobs your website has is to mediate an ongoing relationship between you and your site visitors. Informative, entertaining, and relevant web page content will keep your visitors engaged on the page for longer and thus reduce their bounce rate (another Google search engine measure). It will also inspire them to check in periodically for new content. Quality or sticky content is a very effective way for you to stay in touch with your audience and develop lasting relationships. Returning website visitors goes a long way in keeping your brand at the top of the minds of your potential customers.

Encourages better search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is a term used for the process of making your website visible and relevant to search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Quality SEO is how people will naturally find your website when they search the web for a term,, keyword, or phrase related to your business product or service. Part of SEO is weaving your keywords or phrases into your website content . More and more, search engines are primarily looking for quality content to provide their searchers. By meeting that need, you’ll be more likely to be better ranked in the search engines for your keywords or phrases.

Incites customer action

Good web content includes a strong call to action inviting your website visitors to engage even more. Additionally, a call to action will instruct your visitors what you desire for them to do next. A call to action can be a

phone number to call,

an email form to fill out, or

any action driving your clients closer to their next purchase from your business.

A call to action is easy to neglect in your content. When a visitor takes the time to read your excellent content, they are often looking for a way to contact you. The great value of an effective call to action is a traceable metric to determine the success of your website content in producing more more leads or foot traffic into your business.

When it comes to building your brand, your website is one of your most powerful marketing tools. Make sure you get the best of the best by contacting the experienced professionals at Premier Design Website to handle all of your web design needs. You can reach us at design@premierdesignwebsites.com

Marketing your blog is not all that hard to do. However if you want your blog to do well, you have to be persistent. You cannot just make a post and forget about it. I know this because I’ve done it in years past. By continually updating and marketing your blog, it can become popular and attract a strong following. There are some great ways for effective blogging techniques.

Be a Reporter

Interviewing people and posting it on your blog is an excellent way to market it. Just be sure the people you interview pertain to the market or niche of your blog. Look for the movers, the shakers, the innovators. You want all of your posts to be relevant, including any interviews you might do. For example, if your blog market was bathroom remodels, and you did an interview with the owner of Kohler faucets; that would definitely pertain to your market. Interviews can be written, video, audio or all of the above. Be sure to ask your interviewee to add a link back to your blog post to their own blog or website. It is a win-win for both you and the interviewee.

Share the Latest News

If you hear any news on the market of your blog, be sure that you post it. Everyone loves news. Many readers are looking for a singular source for the latest information about your niche or market. With as quickly as information is changing and available online, sharing the latest with your reader is a terrific way to gather more readers as well as serve your current reader community.

You Could Be a Winner

Contests are another way you may effectively market your blog. Having contests on various things is a lot of fun. Get creative. Contest provide another pull to keep your readers coming back. Everyone loves to win things. You can also make the prizes you are giving away relevant to the market you are promoting on your blog.

Be Your Own Unique Self

While good content is something that you will need for your blog, you also want to ensure that it is original content as well. You cannot produce a blog with something that is copied and which you do not own the rights. Plagiarism will get you in trouble with Google as well as the person who originally wrote the content. Be sure your content is uniquely yours without duplication elsewhere.

Be My Guest

Guest blogging offers you an opportunity to share your knowledge about your niche outside your blog while draw a new group of readers back for more. Select blogs in the same market or niche or even in a related area. If you contact the owner with a few pre-written blog posts, they have can quickly access if you are a match for their audience. You can also consider inviting guest bloggers to your own blog. Guests bloggers can offer different flavor or additional dimension you had not considered. Guest bloggers are a great way to keep your blog fresh.

Blogging marketing is all about persistence and uniqueness. These five techniques are great tools to apply to your blog and increase your popularity with your readership. However, you may have thought of some additional methods. In the comment area below, chat about what you would add or change about this list?

Sitemaps are important to help search engines know where to roam on your website. While there are lots of ways to generate the sitemap, I’d like to show you how to move it to your website. I’ve also included adding your site map to Google’s Webmaster Tools. By the way, the file for your site map is usually called:

sitemap.xml

If you were able to make this work for you, enter your website in the comments below to let everyone know it worked!

While blogging is essential sharing your thoughts in words with the world, pictures inserted appropriately can enhance and brighten even the dullest blog. And sometimes a good cartoon gets your point across best. Learn the step by steps for inserting your first image into your blog. Part 2 will provide a few tricks to make your image shine even more.

It’s nearly the end of November and we’re all putting in the final push to complete our annual sales goals. But have you started thinking about the coming new year? Lots has changed dramatically in the online marketing arena in 2010. Social media went from being a buzz word your savvy techy friends were tossing around to the tool driving your entire marketing plan. Gone are the days when your business, local or global, could ignore the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

As the year comes to a close, be sure to take stock of your marketing dollars. What has worked successfully for you in marketing online this year? What has produced the most measurable results? (you did measure your results right?) Is there a better way to use social media tools such Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to create a more effective and measurable result? If you’re doing your social media marketing inhouse, is it working well for you? Have you considered hiring someone to do your social media marketing for you? If you have hired outside help, do you need to make any adjustments for the new year?

Thanksgiving here in the United States is a day set aside to remember to be thankful. Thankfulness should be a daily thought process, but I like the fact that we celebrate being thankful even if it is just once a year. Many of us spend the day roasting a turkey, watching football (and that’s American football for all you folks who call soccer football, too), and hanging out with friends and family. Oh, and don’t forget the fabled pumpkin pie! (which I just remembered to get out of the freezer – yikes!). Now all this thankful activity reminds me of what I am thankful about online.

1. Recipes for Anything Imaginable

Used to be you had to call your mom to remember what temperature to cook the turkey. Now you can go online. I used www.butterball.com since I bought one of their turkeys. I still called my mom, but we could talk about other things instead of turkey.

My neighbor brought corn pudding to our neighborhood gathering. It was delicious. Rather than trying to catch up with her for the recipe, I found a great selection of recipes at www.myrecipes.com Turned out there was a recipe for corn pudding in this month’s issue of Southern Living Magazine, but I haven’t had time to read through it yet.

2. Sending Thanksgiving Greetings to More People

After I moved away from home and started my own family, we always call home on Thanksgiving to remind everyone why we were thankful for them. It is great to talk with siblings, parents and grandparents – even if they were far away. Today, we can connect with so many more people through email, facebook, twitter, and even this blog. I am thankful to you for reading this today.

3. Black Friday Preview

While the TV ads are blaring how early you must arrive to get the best deals on Black Friday, you can do most of your cost cutting research online. You can find all the major department store flyers at www.blackfriday2010.com. And even sychronize your watch!

Some online merchants are taking advantage of the anticipation and starting a week early. Amazon started their Black Friday specials the previous Monday (so would that be light grey Monday?). It’s nice to get a jump on the deals.

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After nearly 20 years online, Theresa still loves to learn the latest online marketing strategies and distill them into something local business can use to gain more leads and more customers. All while drinking her Starbuck's iced tea. Read More…